Born during the Blizzard of '77 on Valentine’s Day in Buffalo, New York, Thomas Arthur Schaefer’s life and art have been steeped in the interplay of chaos and balance from the very beginning. Even as a child, Schaefer’s curiosity about industrial and artistic processes hinted at the multifaceted practice he would later develop. By his teens, his precocious talent had earned recognition, including awards, gallery attention, and an apprenticeship with comic book inker John Lowe, blending the worlds of fine art and pop culture.

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Schaefer’s formal training began in Cleveland, Tennessee, where exposure to Robert Rauschenberg’s multimedia works at the Hunter Museum ignited his fascination with merging materials and ideas. Later, he pursued Illustration and Photography at Savannah College of Art and Design, laying the foundation for an interdisciplinary approach that spans visual arts, performance, and digital mediums.

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Over his career, Schaefer has worked as a Creative Director for Fortune 500 companies, leveraging his fine art background to craft innovative visual and technical experiences. From crafting annual reports and television commercials to designing websites and applications, Schaefer’s work seamlessly bridges the worlds of business and personal creative expression. In his personal practice, he produces an astonishing range of works annually, diving into realms as varied as Process Art, Arte Povera, Pop, and Performance. His work often explores the intersections of cultural artifacts, occult symbolism, and the visual language of chaos and order. Through his lens, the sacred and the profane, the polished and the raw, collide to reveal new perspectives.

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As curator of ABA Gallery at Arches Brewing in Atlanta, Georgia, Schaefer has showcased over 300 artists in more than 40 exhibitions, championing the dialogue between emerging and established voices. This passion for collective creativity in both corporate and gallery landscapes mirrors his studio practice, where he dissects and reconstructs familiar forms to uncover unexpected truths. His Works On Paper, a decade-long focus, have evolved into expansive multimedia constructs, incorporating cutting-edge techniques like 3D modeling, CNC fabrication, and archival printing—all infused with the energy of street art and the mystery of the arcane.

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Schaefer’s work challenges conventional norms, embracing contradiction and process over outcome. “I don’t want to always make one painting; sometimes I want to make twenty,” he says, “to explore the variations, the chaos, and the balance within.” For Schaefer, success is not defined by commercial appeal but by the act of creation itself, a sentiment he reinforces in his work and philosophy: art as a vessel for inquiry, transformation, and the persistent pursuit of invention.

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